NASA announced Thursday it will fund development of a scientific instrument that will fly on Japan’s Martian Moons Exploration mission, a robotic probe set for launch in 2024 to bring back the first samples from Mars’ largest moon Phobos.
The maiden flight of NASA’s Space Launch System, a heavy-lift human-rated rocket and one of the agency’s core programs, will likely not be ready for takeoff until 2020, officials said recently.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket climbed into space Saturday from California with a $1.6 billion polar-orbiting weather satellite for NOAA, the first of four upgraded observatories designed to keep vital meteorological data flowing to forecasters for the next two decades.
NOAA’s new JPSS 1 weather satellite deployed from its Delta 2 launcher in an orbit more than 500 miles above Earth nearly one hour after blasting off from California.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the JPSS 1 weather satellite, the first in a new line of polar-orbiting observatories for NOAA.
SpaceX has postponed its next launch from the Kennedy Space Center indefinitely to examine data from a recent payload fairing test for another customer.
Rocket Lab’s second flight-ready Electron rocket has arrived at its launch base in New Zealand for the company’s first mission to deliver commercial satellites into orbit.
A top secret payload developed in secrecy for the U.S. government is set to ride into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday.
SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 booster is being readied for liftoff from Cape Canaveral, but most of the launcher’s ascent into orbit will be under a news blackout at the request of the U.S. government customer that owns the top secret Zuma payload fastened to the top of the rocket.
Brisk upper level winds blowing from the west thwarted a second try to launch a new NOAA weather satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket Wednesday, likely postponing the liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California until at least Saturday.